Here once stood the blacksmith shop of Samuel Ridlen, printer of James G. Birney's anti-slavery newspaper, The Philanthropist. Its first edition was published on January 1st, 1836. The paper's content angered slaveholders and their supporters, and multiple threats were made vowing to destroy the presses. Dr. John G. Rogers and Thomas Donaldson formed a vigilance committee known as the "Chieftains of Liberty" to protect Birney and his paper from pro-slavery mob violence.